The Indian cricket team is scheduled to tour Pakistan from 6 January to 19 February, 2009, for five one-day internationals and three Test matches. But Union sports minister Manohar Singh Gill has thrown a major spanner in the works.

This is not the time to tour Pakistan, he says, when “people from their soil are indulging in mass murder”.

“Is it possible for one team to arrive in Bombay and indulge in mass murder, and have another team go and play cricket in the winter afternoon sun at Lahore, immediately after?,” Gill has asked.

The sports minister’s statement is not very different from the stand of senior players in the team like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and M.S. Dhoni who had conveyed their opposition to the Pakistan tour the very evening news the terrorists were rowing their way into Bombay on November 26.

But England has returned to complete its tour of India despite the terror attack on Bombay. So, can the Indians duck Pakistan? And if they do, will it set a precedent, which might have grave implications on future tours to India, the Indian Premier League, the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2011 cricket World Cup itself?

5 comments

Makes perfect sense to suspend all contact with this terrorist nation. Ban any cricket, mujra, cultural(?) exchange, trade with terroristan. Also ban the Jaali Note express and the bus service to muzzafarpur. Also, stop over flight permission to paki flights and withdraw the MFN status to this failed state. Anybody who opposes these moves must be stoned in public. That should silence the kabab-kathak brigade who root for pakistan.

People know the difference between Mahatma Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, who is pretending to sound like one. Like opening gate of Ayodhya, this Pakistan bashing to keep itself afloat, is boomeranging on Congress in a big and broader way.

SP Mookerji is having last laught. Not Nehru. India has changed indeed.

TM – Let us allow the Congress to play its opportunistic game. Let us see how far they actually go.

We are also hamstrung over a BJP that talks more than it delivers. I get the feeling Hindus are hoping and praying that the BJP, at least now, gets its act together.

In so far as this topic goes, India must not do anything that will put more money in Pakistan and/or generate any feeling in people around the world, that Pakistan, after all, is a normal country with normal sporting events.

India must not only not participate, but also actively discourage any other nation from doing so in/with Pakistan.

Why stop only cricket? Earlier, the practice was that upon executing a hostile act, the diplomatic relation would be severed. This was the practice during Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi’s time. We seem to have become a effate country. Going under the gilotine seems to be more manly than being prudent and excommunicate the recancitrant country. Stop Lahore Bus, stop Samjhouta, stop cricket, stop “peace” dialog, lastly stop aiding pakistan, when there is next earthquake!